Buckeye Firearms Association applauds the Ohio House Criminal Justice Committee’s 9-3 vote to pass the amended SB184, Ohio's Castle Doctrine legislation.

SB184 passed the Ohio Senate in April with a 31-0 vote. Before being voted out of committee in the House, it was amended to include technical corrections and improve laws for law-abiding gun owners in Ohio.

The amendment provides a legal way for a person who does not have a concealed handgun license to transport an unloaded firearm in a motor vehicle. It allows a concealed handgun licensee to pick up a child from school, to carry a concealed firearm in one's own home without a license, to carry concealed in places such as grocery stores that sell alcohol for off-site consumption, to carry concealed in publicly-owned facilities such as park shelters, parking garages, and highway rest stop buildings, and to carry in an unlocked, closed glove compartment or center console.

The amendment also eliminates the written test to re-qualify for a Concealed Handgun License (CHL), defines a "loaded" firearm more clearly, provides for mandatory attorney's fees when police fail to return a firearm to its rightful owner, lessens the penalty for failure to inform a police officer of one's status as a CHL-holder if the officer had actual notice of the CHL, and prevents a landlord from evicting a tenant because they lawfully own and/or carry a firearm.